God, I’m morbid tonight.
“So,” Zora says, turning to me. “Are you going to, like, die celibate?”
I roll my eyes, wondering why I haven’t told them about Angelo. I guess it’s because I know they’d go crazy and want to know every excruciating detail. They’d pull it out of me one by one until there’s nothing left. Maybe I just want to keep the memories for me, our little self-contained universe.
But at the same time, I do want advice.
So I tell them half of the truth: we went for a drink, I ran into him at an accident. I leave out the crazy sex, for obvious reasons. “… But yeah, raging asshole. Cute, but asshole,” I finish.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” Zora says, only half-joking with the wildly over-the-top sighing noise she makes. “I’m sorry, but this sounds like fate.”
I can’t help but smile. “That’s what he says,” I tell her. “But he was being a Grade-A jerk to that lady. I mean, she did rear-end him, and apparently she was on her phone. But he was really giving it to her. Like a redheaded stepchild, you know?”
“Oh,” Quinny says, pouring more wine. “My heart bleeds for this road-texting angel.”
“Yeah!” Zora cries. “Who gives a shit? Listen, I haven’t seen your face light up like that since you graduated from EMT school. You’re into him, Dani.”
I shake my head. “I don’t have the time to be into anyone,” I tell her. “I work more than I sleep and I’ve got Wyatt to worry about. Getting involved on a serious level isn’t an option.”
“Okay, number one: who said serious?” Zora points out. “And number two: Wyatt’s a grown-ass man, last time I checked.”
“He might look like one,” I say. “But he is definitely not a grown-ass man.” I shake my head again. I’m tired. I just want to sleep and not to dream. To pass out hibernation-style, with a full belly and an empty head.
“If you have anything even approaching chemistry with this man,” Zora says, “you have a responsibility to pursue it. Okay?”
I stand up, shaking my head. “The only responsibility I have right now is to my bed.”
Zora, clearly a little tipsy, leaps to her feet and puts her hands on my shoulder. “Dani! If you don’t screw this man, I will!”
Here’s the thing: I know Zora is joking. She’s smiling. She’s still talking in that ludicrous voice.
And yet, her stupid joke still makes me a little jealous.
It’s just a tiny bit. But it’s enough to let me know that I’m in way deeper than I guessed.
Because who is Angelo, really? Just some jerk-off in an expensive suit and a nice watch. So what if my body wants his? So what if I’m dreaming about him?
Fuck biology. Fuck my rebellious body. Fuck my disobedient mind.
“I’m going to bed,” I announce with finality.
I walk into the bedroom and take a quick shower. Then, circumnavigating my discarded clothes, I drop into bed.
I know one thing for certain: I don’t care about Angelo, and I’m not going to dream about him. That’s what I tell myself, as I feel the mattress eating me, as unconsciousness drapes over my eyes.
I’m not going to dream about him.
But when my waking eyes close and my dreamy ones open, there he is, hard and naked, a cocky smirk on his beautiful, flawless, infuriating face.
9
Angelo
A few days drift by and business labors on. Nothing happens with the Albanians, which I find absurd. I don’t see Dani again, which I know I should not find absurd but which, somehow, I find even more ridiculous than the Albanian situation. I think about her, but not just her body. I think about her fiery tongue and the way she lets me slip into a different skin, a version of me where I can have fun and be carefree.
It unnerves me. Perhaps it’s better that our paths have not crossed again.
It’s the morning of the interviews Levi has arranged. A selection of women have been brought to the office for me to choose from—potential fake wives. I wonder if any of them will have Dani’s bright, knowing eyes. I wonder if any of them will make me want to spar with words with them the way I do with her.
As I ride the elevator, adjusting my cufflinks, I create an impossible scenario in my mind.
The elevator door opens and Dani is standing at the rear of the line wearing a skirt that goes right up to her ass, showing off her strong, lithe legs, and there’s this tan line just below the hem from sunbathing in shorts, so half her leg is tan and the other is temptingly pale, making me think of how pink her pussy will be.
She turns to me with a sassy tilt of the head. “Are you really gonna make me wait?” I grab her, drag her past the other candidates, and bend her over the desk. She’s wearing—fuck yes—blood-red heels that she keeps on the whole time. I don’t even take off her lacy underwear, just push it so the side, so that, as I bury myself to the hilt in her wet, wanting pussy, I can feel the graze of the fabric.
I shake my head. Jesus Christ, this woman gets to me.
Of course, she is not here. When the elevator door opens, I walk past a line of women dressed just as I imagined Dani, but they do not stir anything in me. That’s strange, surely. I am a single man and these women are—objectively speaking—attractive. But instead, I sigh and walk into my office without so much as a backwards glance.
Levi is waiting at the window, back turned to me, smoking a cigarette and blowing big plumes out of the window.
“Since when are you smoking again?” I ask, walking over to my giant oak desk. I drop into the seat and toy with the letter opener, playing five-finger fillet. The table is pockmarked from where I’ve played it before.
Levi just keeps smoking.
“Levi, man, I asked you a goddamn question.”
He turns to me, all jittery. “Sorry, Angelo,” he sighs, taking a long drag. “Long night. Shit, these?” He tilts his head at the cigarette. “We’re all gonna die one day, right? Maybe sooner rather than later in this game.”
“Not me,” I tell him. “I plan on living to be one hundred and king of the city. Don’t be morbid. And put that shit out. It reeks.”
With a shrug, Levi finishes the rest of the cigarette and drops it into an ashtray I didn’t even know I had. I nod at it. “Where’d you find that?”
“Outside in the smoking area,” he tells me. “Thought it’d be polite.” He winks. “You know me, friend to the little people. I don’t want to make the cleaners’ job harder than it needs to be.”
He’s talking like Levi, he’s making jokes like Levi, but there’s something off. It’s like he’s pretending to be Levi, which makes no sense. When you have known somebody your entire life, you know when there’s something subtly off with them, even if you’re not sure exactly what it is.
“How is Madolina?” I say.
He flinches. “She’s fine, Angelo. Still giving me shit about the nursing home, but she’s fine.” He looks away, nonchalant.
But he flinched. I saw it.
“You said you had a long night,” I say, trying a different tact. “What happened?”